President Donald Trump has ordered officials to declassify files on three of the most consequential killings in U.S. history – those of former President John F. Kennedy, former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.
In an order signed last week, Trump ordered the Director of National Intelligence and the attorney general to review the related documents “and present a plan for their full and complete release within 45 days,” according to a statement released by the White House.
The executive order came after Trump had previously promised on the campaign trail to declassify the documents upon entering his second term, saying at the time, “When I return to the White House, I will declassify and unseal all JFK assassination-related documents. It’s been 60 years, time for the American people to know the TRUTH!”
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However, this is not the first time the JFK files have been expected to be released.
Congress previously passed the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, mandating that all records be housed in a single collection and be released within 25 years, barring any postponements for security reasons.
President Donald Trump ordered to declassify files on the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations via executive order last week. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump had initially promised to release the last batch of documents during his first term, but such efforts ultimately dissipated. Trump blocked the release of hundreds of records on the assassination following several CIA and FBI appeals.
“I have no choice,” Trump said in a memo, where he cited “potentially irreversible harm” to national security if he allowed the records to be released. Trump said at the time the potential harm to U.S. national security, law enforcement or foreign affairs is “of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
TRUMP SIGNS ORDER TO DECLASSIFY FILES ON JFK, RFK AND MLK ASSASSINATIONS
Former President Joe Biden later released another batch of documents in 2021, as well as in 2022 and 2023. The Biden White House announced in July 2023 that the National Archives and the Records Administration had concluded its review of the JFK documents, making 99% of the material publicly available.
“I have now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue,” Trump’s Thursday order states.
Congress previously passed the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. (Associated Press)
“And although no Act of Congress directs the release of information pertaining to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government’s possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest.”
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Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., thanked Trump after the announcement was issued, lauding the president “for taking the first step down the road towards reversing this disastrous trajectory.”
“The 60-year strategy of lies and secrecy, disinformation, censorship, and defamation employed by Intel officials to obscure and suppress troubling facts about JFK’s assassination has provided the playbook for a series of subsequent crises — the MLK and RFK assassinations, Vietnam, 9/11, the Iraq war and COVID — that have each accelerated the subversion of our exemplary democracy by the Military/Medical Industrial Complex and pushed us further down the road toward totalitarianism,” Kennedy Jr. posted on X.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., thanked President Donald Trump after the announcement was issued, lauding the president “for taking the first step down the road towards reversing this disastrous trajectory.” (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
JFK’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, also reacted to the declassification news, writing on X that the move was “using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back.”
“There’s nothing heroic about it,” Schlossberg wrote.
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Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano, Landon Mion and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
